


Abbey

by valkyriered



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Healing, Pseudo-Incest, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25371193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyriered/pseuds/valkyriered
Summary: Rin punches Shigure hard enough to knock him back on the ground, and for the first time standing over him she realizes that he never had any true power over her beyond what she had granted him.Takes place post-series. Contains manga spoilers.
Relationships: Sohma Akito/Sohma Shigure (Background), Sohma Rin & Sohma Shigure
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Abbey

  
Rin punches Shigure hard enough to knock him back on the ground, and for the first time standing over him she realizes that he never had any true power over her beyond what she had granted him.

In her memories he looms large— always taller than her, always lifting her and carrying her and teaching her things she did not know. But now, on the floor, at her feet and bleeding, she realizes he’s just a man. Weak, and conniving. And just a man. She remembers his words from what feels like eons ago, how he’d told her this exact thing. A man of no merit. At the time she couldn’t believe him. 

Now she knows it’s one of the few times that he was completely honest with her. 

He looks genuinely surprised, and lifts a hand to his face to touch his bloody nose, and to look at the stain on his fingers. His eyes raise up to meet hers and they stare at each other.

“Don’t come near me.” She says. “I never want to see you again.”

An overreaction, perhaps. All Shigure had told her was that he will be marrying Akito and moving back into the Main House. It’s not something she’s particularly shocked by— she’d seen the way they’d drawn to each other after the breaking of the curse, and she’d ignored it as a kindness to herself. Shigure was never a true protector, but he was gentle with her when she’d needed it most. He’d held her as a baby, as a young girl. His home had been a solace for her away from the prying eyes and memories of the Main House.

And now he’s giving up his home in favor of a God who no longer had any power over them.

The curse is broken, but somehow it still haunts her. She feels the same lack of control that she’d always had under it. 

This, though— refusing Shigure, turning away from him— she feels herself setting her own path. One of the first steps away from the looming hands of her family. She and Haru will leave, she knows that. And there are things she aches to leave behind. Her life has always been blocked in by the walls of her household, and even though it was a prison, it was a shelter too. The world outside is frightening, but how could it hurt her any more than what she’s already suffered at the hands of her family?

Shigure wipes at his face, smearing the blood across his cheek. She knows from experience that it’ll keep bleeding sluggishly for a while, before drying and crusting up into dark red crystals. She’s not sure if she broke his nose, but she wouldn’t mind if she did. 

“Rin-chan.” Shigure says, sounding only mildly surprised even though his hand is shaking. His pet name for her sounds strange now, with him sprawled out at her feet. “Is that really what you want?”

“Yes.” She says, even as it tears at her. She still loves Shigure, in the twisted way the two of them care about each other. Constantly circling, but drawn to each other like two lonely wild things. Twisted by the curse, trying to manipulate each other. What was he to her? A father, a brother, something darker than that. She’d seen the way he looked at her body, the way his touch sometimes lingered a little too long. She was under no illusion about what it meant. She wouldn’t have offered her body to him if she hadn’t known he wanted it in the first place. 

And he wouldn’t have treated her that way it if he hadn’t wanted her to know. He was perfectly comfortable with her seeing the multitude of ways he treated her. He did it to keep her guessing, to keep her unstable, to make sure she needed him. Perhaps when she was younger Shigure truly did love her like family, but now she knows how much it’s been twisted, that she’s both a person and a possession to him. That he needed her to need him. 

And she did need him.

Perhaps she still does. She’ll have to find out.

“Don’t follow me.” She says.

“I won’t.” Shigure promises, and for once she’s absolutely sure that he’s not lying to her or misleading her. “I do care about you, you know.”

“Did you love me?”

Shigure eyes her. “I did. Maybe not the way you wanted, but I did.”

She does know that, somewhere in her core. That Shigure’s version of love is just as twisted as her own. Perhaps it’s why they’ve always been so drawn to each other. 

She stares down at him for a moment longer, searing the image of him into her brain. Shigure as a man, just a man, nothing more. And then she turns to leave.

“Goodbye, Rin.” He says.

She doesn’t respond. She barely even registers it, because she’s leaving his house, past the boxes of books that he’s packed up to move back into the Main House, past the office where he’d whispered half-truths to her. She escapes into the woods surrounding his home that had always been temporary.

She doesn’t look back. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wuU_3GmGWs
> 
> this is my tumblr! https://valkyriered.tumblr.com


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